PEORIA, Ill.—At a special township meeting on Tuesday, April 14, the solidarity group Peoria Rally for Palestine and its allies brought out the community to push for an advisory referendum on the November ballot.
The question seeks to ask voters to weigh in on a pending state bill, H.B. 2723, the Illinois Human Rights Advocacy Protection Act. The bill would amend an Illinois policy that punishes free speech by preventing companies from divesting and boycotting Israel for its genocidal against Palestinians.
Justin Leuba of Peoria Rally for Palestine emphasized the importance of the bill. “This has lost Illinois pensioners substantial dollars that they could use in retirement,” they said. “I myself am a member of the State University retirement system, and so this issue strikes particularly close to my own heart and future quality of life.”
After back-and-forth debate between supporters and opponents, the advisory question was approved in a 69 to 27 by the Peoria community and will be on the November ballot.
Prior to the vote, Peoria Rally for Palestine hosted a pre-vote party at local bar, Kickback on Fulton, with local musicians Ava Easter, Ethan Zulz, and Kuhntree Jerry, getting people excited to go to the township meeting. The event eased people’s nerves, getting supporters excited for what was to be a drawn out and tense meeting. Joining Peoria for Palestine in support of the vote were organizations like the Peoria Club of the Communist Party USA and Fully Free Peoria Chapter.
During debate, a few key points came up in support of the referendum. The first issue, as raised by Lawerence Maushard of Peoria Rally for Palestine, was the question of the constitutionality of restricting free speech under current law.
“There’s no way that there should be an Illinois law that prohibits boycotting of Israel, and it surely would not pass a constitutional case, and I’m surprised that it hasn’t come out yet,” Maushard said. “It’s truly an unconstitutional law, and you don’t have to be a legal scholar to figure this out.”
Another key theme of the debate was brought up by Lydia Wilson, which is how the existing state law ends up colluding with the genocide against Palestinians. “The actual issue at hand that is the ongoing genocide and slaughter of millions of civilians,” she said. “It’s laws like this that prevent companies from divesting from Israel.”
Opposition to the motion largely raised issues of technicalities, such as the referendum not having anything to do with the township’s local affairs, defense of Israel’s actions, and wrongly equating Jewish religious identity to Zionist ideology. There were also challenges raised about the specific wording of the question having a perceived mistake in how it was written.
In rebuttal, Noah Palm of Peoria CPUSA spoke up about the technicality issues, saying, “National and international politics are local. I think we are all feeling the impact of international and state politics, and I think we have a way here to make our opinion known here.”
After the vote, a brief rally was held outside city hall with activists and organizers celebrating the referendum being added to the ballot. Justin Leuba said that Peoria Rally for Palestine is overjoyed but that this win is just the first step.
“We’re going to make sure voters are educated as to the content of the referendum question and understand exactly what their vote and support of our nonviolent referendum will mean in terms of our state legislators’ ability to determine the public will,” they told the crowd.
In addition to Peoria, similar ballot questions were added at township meetings in the cities of Medina, Normal, Kickapoo, Urbana, DuPage, and Naperville, setting up the opportunity for voters to weigh in on the banning of boycotts and divestments against Israel. As a result, several communities will be asked to inform legislators of their position as the whether the Prairie State should continue giving special protection to the actions of the State of Israel.
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